Four years ago, Jocelyn Butler left her tragic past behind in the States and started over in Edinburgh. Burying the grief, ignoring her demons, and forging ahead without any real attachments has worked well for her so far but when Joss moves into a fantastic apartment on Dublin Street, her carefully guarded world is shaken to its core by her new roommate's sexy older brother.

Braden Carmichael is a man who always gets what he wants. And what he wants is Jocelyn in his bed. Knowing how skittish Joss is concerning any kind of relationship, Braden proposes a sexual arrangement that should satisfy the intense attraction between them without it developing into anything 'more'. An intrigued Jocelyn agrees, completely unprepared for the Scotsman and his single-minded determination to strip the stubborn young woman bare... to the very soul.

Contains strong adult content. For readers ages 18+

Diving In...

This was my first Samantha Young book, but I can say with some certainty that it won't be my last! I loved this book, but I should probably just say that I loved Braden Carmichael. He made this book fantastic for me without a doubt. I rated this 5 stars on Goodreads and that is based solely on the character of Braden. I actually could have just read about him alone and been happy, that's how much I liked him. He like a sexy Scottish Gideon Cross!

All that said, I should point out now that I didn't care for Jocelyn. She had a terrific back story, but I found her incredibly irritating throughout most of the book. I realize that she has pretty big issues that she's dealing with throughout the course of the story, but I just wanted her to suck it up and put on her big girl panties once and for all. I just seemed to be drawn out for so long and I just wanted to smack her, shake her and yell at her "look at what you have and are about to lose if you don't just grow up and deal with all your crap". I did like that she realized that she needed to talk to someone, but even that didn't seem to really help her any at all. I also liked how the therapy sessions are just stuck into the relevant parts of the story

There are some really great supporting characters in this book. Braden and Els family was fantastic and I did really like Adam as well. The fact that they were willing to take Joss on as part of the family was pretty awesome, especially when she continued to hold most of them at arms length.

The writing here is pretty superb, it's also pretty nicely edited which is always a real treat when reading self published books. I do kind of feel like the ending was rushed. The story seemed to take a really long time to build up and then Joss hits this breakthrough point and it's just over and we just get a little couple years later epilogue. I would like to maybe have seen a little less of the draw out in the middle and more about how she ultimately deals with her issues. Instead it was more like "Joss is all better and this is what her life is like now". I think that maybe a sequel for Ellie would be nice too!

BUT did I mention that Braden is like HOLY HOT Scotsman?!! He was the cake and the icing in this book and if you like it for no other reason, it's totally worth reading for him alone. If you liked books like Bared to You or Gabriel's Rapture you will love this one. It's really a great quick and sexy read!